I would love to be buried under my apple trees, assuming one of my family would inherit and move into my house. Even if they replaced cider apples with desert apples. Or have my ashes scattered around a cherry tree.

Preparing for the visit last April I rang this mob looking for sheepshit (average nitrogen and phosphorous, nice high potassium) but none to be found. The mob I bought from offered me feedlot cow manure. I refused. I was thinking the unhealthy way of life for cows on a feedlot, eating grain not grass, manure belly deep, antibiotics galore etc. There is another reason: the cows are fed grain, that means their poop is higher in nitrogen (grain has more protein than grass) and nitrogen might be OK for sweet corn and cabbage, not for fruit trees. So I made the right decision maybe for the wrong reason.

Reading the Jacky French “Soil Food” book and she does state a truism we need to heed:

No matter how good your soil, if you take stuff out you need to put stuff back in.

We do not recycle our poop for very good reasons so will always need to add something to our soil, some organic matter. Manures are a good way. If you see bags of cow poop outside a farm only buy them, nice and cheap, like $2/bag, if you know it is a dairy farm. Age the manure a month or two, no real need to compost, cows eat grass so the manure is not hot.

Horse poo—full of weed seeds. Composts or make a manure tea to spray onto leaves. For fruit trees sheep poo is good. Pig manure is good but high nitrogen so not for fruit trees. Magnificent manure tho, has N & P & K and likely all sorts trace elements.

If you want to grow fruit trees then you want to establish “guilds.” A guild is a fruit tree with various understory plants.

Pomegranates—tall shrubsCurrents—red white or black and gooseberries, Tasmanian pepperberry, all understory plants.Herbs like rosemary and oregano, sage etc and especially fennelHerbs like yarrow and tansy (grow tansy near your backdoor and flies will not be a problem. Tansy was one of the Medieval strewing herbs, kept fleas at bay.) Yarrow and tansy were two ingredients of gruit, the bitter herbs used before hops became the bittering addition—tansy is an abortifacient, I don’t recommend ingesting it in any way! Good as insect control agent tho!Long rooted plants like lucerne and comfrey. Dead leaves put nutrients from deep down into the top of the soil.Flowers, shade lovers like clivia, low mainenance plans like pigface daisy and lavender (prune lightly after flowering finishes. Pick and dry lavender flowers for culinary use or to extract oils.

Interplanting like this is the way to go and not just because you can get more food: the plants attract beneficial insects including pollinators but also predators on plant pests.

HBS Guy wrote:If you want to grow fruit trees then you want to establish “guilds.” A guild is a fruit tree with various understory plants.

Pomegranates—tall shrubsCurrents—red white or black and gooseberries, Tasmanian pepperberry, all understory plants.Herbs like rosemary and oregano, sage etc and especially fennelHerbs like yarrow and tansy (grow tansy near your backdoor and flies will not be a problem. Tansy was one of the Medieval strewing herbs, kept fleas at bay.) Yarrow and tansy were two ingredients of gruit, the bitter herbs used before hops became the bittering addition—tansy is an abortifacient, I don’t recommend ingesting it in any way! Good as insect control agent tho!Long rooted plants like lucerne and comfrey. Dead leaves put nutrients from deep down into the top of the soil.Flowers, shade lovers like clivia, low mainenance plans like pigface daisy and lavender (prune lightly after flowering finishes. Pick and dry lavender flowers for culinary use or to extract oils.

Interplanting like this is the way to go and not just because you can get more food: the plants attract beneficial insects including pollinators but also predators on plant pests.

So I am just planting seeds wherever I want to. We keep seed in a dish in the kitchen, will plant them out with compost in a few weeks time and see what arises.

HBS Guy wrote:As long as you plant and interplant you will have a healthier garden.

How is that butterfly attracting forest of yours going, Sprint? Love to see some photos!

In the Sand Pit, “Well that was a shock to the system” thread are some photos of my Tassie block and preparations I have done. Next April there will be 16 fruit trees planted.

Yes, I space the trees around then plant whatever I feel like under those.

have also tried some 'Sugar cane bale' raised gardens. Seem very good, especially given the effort used.To do these, buy bales of sugar cane or hay that have been baled together by wire/string. Not encased in plastic.Lie the bale on the ground so the string is not touching the ground. leave the string as it is.Plant things straight into the sugar cane.

It gives an instant raised garden.If it fails, undo the strings and you have more mulch.

HBS Guy wrote:You can post them as attachments too, no need to move them to a picture hosting site like photobucket or Flickr, leave them on your hard drive.

how do i do an attachment ?

hit reply, and if you go to the box below your 'submit' button, you will see two tabs, one says 'upload attachment', 'choose file' from your hard drive and once you find the photo click on it and the photo's will attach. You will have to add some text to the normal dialogue box, even if it's just a smiley face or full stop, otherwise the software thinks you're posting nothing and won't allow it.

FD.I hope that bitch who was running their brothels for them gets raped with a cactus.